On April 12, Rice360 Institute of Global Health Technologies hosted its 14th Annual Rice360 Global Health Technologies Design Competition where 24 international teams competed for top awards in innovative, novel designs to address global health challenges.
The competition featured keynotes from Leith Greenslade, founder and CEO of JustActions and Coordinator of the Every Breath Counts Coalition, and Dr. Nuttada Panpradist, biomedical researcher and engineer at the University of Washington. The keynote speakers received the Rice360 Innovation and Leadership in Global Health Award.
Additionally, attendees heard remarks from Dr. Ning Li, a Rice alumnus, as she presented the second annual Crystal Sea Award to the competition team that best expanded innovation in materials sciences or digital innovation.
Mapping the Future in Global Health Technology
A common theme emerged from all three speakers, who provided insights into the future of global health and technology. Each speaker spoke about current trends and past events that should inform the focus of future efforts in global health among the students gathered at the event.
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Leith Greenslade, JustActions Founder & CEO | Coordinator of the Every Breath Counts Coalition
Dr. Maria Oden introduced Leith Greenslade as the opening keynote speaker for the 14th Annual Rice360 Global Health Technologies Design Competition. Oden described Greenslade as a visionary in expanding global health innovation and equity around the world and as an embodiment of the qualities Rice360 would like to see in its students as they become the next generation of global health leaders. Oden presented Greenslade with the Rice360 Innovation and Leadership in Global Health Award as someone who exemplifies Rice360’s dedication to innovation in global health through her leadership and impact in creating a more just and equitable world.
Brave New World & 10 Wicked Challenges
Greenslade titled her presentation “Brave New World, how biomedical engineers can shape a brighter future,” purposefully invoking Aldous Huxley’s novel published in 1932, which described a technology-driven dystopian future. She asked young engineers and those involved in global health initiatives to use technology as she put it, to build a better future than the one described in Huxley’s novel.
“Our greatest hope for world progress in the 21st century may well rest on one factor—younger generations finding ways to cooperate beyond nation, religion, race, and gender on a grand scale.” -- JustActions, 2024
Global Health Timelines
Greenslade introduced the audience to a history of global health initiatives, beginning with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) introduced in the year 2000, with three relating to health (see below). During this period, five new global health institutions were established, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, The Global Fund, GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition), and Unitaid. At the same time, the US government launched two global health initiatives: the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003, and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in 2005, under the leadership of President George W. Bush.
Following the creation of these new global health institutions, global health spending increasing by more than 200% between 2000 and 2010. Three infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis) received most of the funding and as a result, MDG 6 was achieved by 2015. In contrast,MDGs 4 and 5, which focus on reducing maternal and child deaths, were not achieved. The lack of advancement in these areas shows that global health progress cannot be achieved without resources.
Greenslade explained that in 2015, to renew and expand efforts to combat the most pressing issues in global health, the United Nations developed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a 2030 deadline. The world began to work anew to achieve these broader goals, encompassing learnings from the original MDGs. She noted that global changes began impacting these efforts almost from the beginning—in 2019 the world started to change in a specific way—it became hotter. The warmer temperatures, she explained, triggering increases in infectious disease outbreaks - Ebola, Zika, Yellow Fever, Measles, Dengue, and Cholera. She noted that the burdens of chronic conditions also began to increase significantly. And these shifts were global. Advancing global health was getting more complicated and more urgent.
She said that the unimaginable happened in 2020 with the COVID-19 global pandemic. The scale of the pandemic was remarkable. A respiratory infection that would kill 7 - 30 million people in less than three years, sparing no region—high and low resource settings all being affected. In comparison, the number of people who died from AIDS at the peak of the pandemic between 2003 and 2005 was 4.4 million.
She urged the audience and undergraduate students never to forget this massive loss of life and to ask hard questions so that it never happened again. She listed several questions that the global health community must reckon with post COVID-19, including why global health performed so poorly to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, why so much global health power was concentrated in a few high-income countries, and why global health is so selective in the issues it focuses on (e.g., neglecting chronic diseases). Greenslade emphasized that the audience of undergraduates would have an opportunity to transform global health. She remarked that this audience would likely see another global pandemic in their lifetimes, for which they should prepare.
Focus for Impact
Greenslade presented data to outline where global health initiatives can have the most impact. She invited future medical technologists to explore a “prescription for global health progress” where engineers worked to develop “the most cost-effective solutions to the leading causes of early death with the largest, most vulnerable populations, and their uptake.”
"With this data, you can zero in on the engineering challenges that can save the most lives…"
--Leith Greenslade, 2024
She encouraged biomedical engineers to help in preventing the leading causes of early death (0- 49 years) to make the most impact. These leading causes of early death include neonatal disorders, pneumonia, road injuries, diarrhea, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, malaria, congenital defects, self-harm, and tuberculosis, according to the Global Burden of Disease 2019. Greenslade urged biomedical engineers to also consider the leading risk factors for early death, including low birth weight, short gestational term (preterm birth), child wasting, high blood pressure, alcohol use, household air pollution, unsafe sex, unsafe water, outdoor air pollution, and high body mass index.
She also asked the students to focus on the most vulnerable age groups identified in the same report. These groups include neonates, children under 14, men ages 15-49, and women ages 15-49. She noted that this report showed men comprised 63% of early adult deaths primarily due to road injuries and heart disease. Women, she said, are most vulnerable to maternal disorders, breast cancer, and cervical cancer.
Furthermore, she encouraged young technologists to consider which regions of the globe carry the heaviest burdens of early death, including India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, the USA, Russia, and Ethiopia.
Top 10 Wicked Challenges for Biomedical Engineers
Greenslade concluded her keynote with a call for students to work on what she termed the Top 10 Wicked Challenges for Biomedical Engineers. These 10 challenges are areas where global health can make the most impact in the near future, according to Greenslade:
- Effective prevention of low birth weight and preterm birth
- Early identification of congenital defects and corrective technologies
- Increased access to breastmilk and nutritional supplements to prevent wasting
- Easier diagnosis of pneumonia and distinguish bacterial from viral causes
- Improved critical care tools to respond to road accident injuries
- Transformative solutions to reduce consumption of salt, sugar, tobacco, and alcohol
- Simple tools to diagnose and treat high blood pressure and heart disease
- Less painful screening tests to identify breast cancer
- Accurate measurement of air and water quality and correctives at household and health facility levels
- New generation of pandemic- and climate change-proof medical devices
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Dr. Nuttada Panpradist, Biomedical researcher and engineer at the University of Washington
Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum introduced Dr. Nuttada Panpradist and presented her with Rice360’s Leadership in Global Health Awards in recognition of her advocacy for capacity building and meaningful bi-directional collaborations in global health.
Lessons from Global Health Innovations
In her closing keynote address, Dr. Panpradist shared her unique journey from a newly graduated petrochemical engineer in Thailand to a medical device salesperson to a biomedical engineer and global health researcher at the University of Washington.
Ever the mentor, she offered her insights about biomedical research and development as lessons for other engineers. She quipped that she wants to share her stories to help others avoid the pitfalls she experienced. Panpradist stressed that students should be adaptable and pursue a career despite obstacles. For researchers, she emphasized one key question guiding all projects: “Who will pay?” and the importance of working with others to build capacity. Her keynote emphasized these points.
Arriving in Biomedical Engineering
Panpradist described her path to biomedical engineering, noting that any career can take unexpected turns. When she graduated as a petrochemical engineer, the job market in Thailand specifically asked for men under age 35 as a requirement. She found herself unqualified despite her degree. So, she pivoted and took a position in medical sales.
From her work selling medical devices, she could not help but become aware of the impact of devices on saving and improving lives. As an engineer, she was also compelled to imagine ways to improve the products she was selling and dream up new products for impact at lower cost. This awakened in her a drive to further her education in biomedical engineering.
Panpradist encountered another obstacle; Thailand lacked a PhD program in bioengineering. Showing her tenacity again, she moved to the US to pursue a PhD in biomedical engineering. After moving, she became more aware of health system disparities between the US and her native Thailand and was inspired to focus on developing diagnostics for low-resource settings.
As part of her education in the US, she endeavored to make a real impact by coupling her research with entrepreneurship, mentoring, and establishing strong cross-department collaborations within the University of Washington. Extending beyond the University of Washington, she volunteers to give lectures and talks, which helps her gain exposure to broader, real-world experiences in healthcare communities. As a researcher, Panpradist has worked on three key projects: OLA-Simple, COVID-19, and tuberculosis testing.
Developing OLA-Simple
Panpradist discussed her project OLA-Simple (oligonucleotide ligation assay), her first minimal viable product, which is a simplified and low-cost assay for HIV drug-resistance testing. The test is used to identify different strains of HIV so that treatment can be personalized based on the strain infecting the patient. HIV strains become resistant to antivirals through rapid mutations, and tests like OLA-Simple are vital to prescribing the right antiviral. As a low-cost and accessible HIV diagnostic, the test promises to change care and outcomes for HIV patients in low- and middle-income settings. In September 2023, the work of Panpradist and the OLA-Simple team were awarded an honor of the most promising point-of-care drug resistance test technology at the International HIV Drug Resistance workshop organized by the World Health Organization HIVResNet network.
She offered the audience three takeaways from her OLA-Simple HIV Journey:
- Challenges move fast: in a fast, challenging market, it can be hard to find investment, frame a business model, or establish key form factors. Relying on multi-country collaborations can speed up development in these areas.
- Who will pay? Use cases should determine who will pay for the innovation during product iterations
- Be adaptable: make platforms flexible to adapt to other applications so the innovation is ready to launch when the right opportunity comes
Ready to Graduate, But Then COVID-19 Global Pandemic
Panpradist was familiar with pivoting her career when, as she was about to graduate and complete her role on the OLA-Simple project, the global pandemic presented a new challenge she had skills to address. She encouraged audience members to learn to take on the challenges as they present themselves. Being flexible and responsive with her skills is something Panpradist has benefited from throughout her career. She spoke about the development of the COVID-19 test, which became a marketed technology, the second project she addressed in her keynote.
I felt like that was the call for me to take all my knowledge to help fight the battle of COVID-19. So, I stuck around and developed a point-of-care COVID-19 test. The prototype actually was really well received, the technology then got licensed to the startup that became a commercial product today. --Dr. Nuttada Panpradist, 2024
Tuberculosis Screening & Bi-Directional Research Opportunities
The third project Panpradist discussed was for tuberculosis screening. During work on this project, Panpradist became acutely aware of the power of engaging in bi-directional, transnational, multi-disciplinary research partnerships with researchers in low- and middle-income countries. Panpradist collaborated with colleagues in Kenya on tuberculosis point-of-care testing. She said the collaboration moved the project forward faster than it would have without international input.
I could not emphasize enough about our ability for us to actually put ourselves out there to connect with people from different backgrounds. I was lucky to participate in one of the seminars in which I was paired with the clinician from Kenya who was very passionate about tuberculosis. --Dr. Nuttada Panpradist, 2024
Partnerships accelerated her work by identifying key aspects of the technology development, paths to scaling and implementation, and insights into user uptake of medical technologies that would not have been apparent without bi-directional input. From one of her clinician colleagues in Kenya who was passionate about caring for those with tuberculosis, she learned about a limitation in detecting tuberculosis in children.
Panpradist accepted the challenge and investigated other methods to analyze tuberculosis DNA. Long story short, she identified the gap in tuberculosis testing that had been present for the past decade in how tuberculosis DNA is detected in a urine sample. Based on her research, Panpradist proposed a new method for detecting the DNA in urine, which led to funding. Today, Panpradist and her team can demonstrate one of the most sensitive tuberculosis DNA detection techniques from a urine sample.
She said transferring technological knowledge and skills to transnational researchers increases equity in medical research and promotes decolonization. By transferring technological capability and giving credit through co-authoring and co-ownership to fellow researchers in low- and middle-income countries, those researchers will sustainably grow the local development of diagnostics. As an example, she highlighted the work of two Kenyan co-developers on her other TB project, Ronald Odero and Prestone Owati, who have been instrumental in pushing forward a sustainable solution for tuberculosis drug resistance testing in Kenya. When working with her Kenyan colleagues, she took the approach of answering questions together. She acted as a mentor through the design process, teaching them problem-solving techniques.
She showed a photograph of a moment that emphasized the effectiveness of mentoring and sharing knowledge. In the photo, Odero and Owati are holding a version of the test. Panpradist recalled not knowing what was going on because Odero and Owati were speaking in Swahili. But before she knew it, they were able to collect the data that showed a successful run of the test for tuberculosis. The breakthrough happened from the work led by the two Kenyan team members. To Panpradist, this example shows how researchers transferring knowledge can lead to true co-development of technologies through bi-directional collaboration.
Exchanges & Coordinating Funding
Panpradist finds power in collaboration. Through conversation and coordination, many of her most significant contributions to global health have come to be. She has been inspired to change global health diagnostics at the systematic level, where a need to transfer knowledge and skills exists. Within her research programs, she seeks to establish innovative, inclusive, and sustainable global diagnostics, emphasizing accelerated technology transfer and implementation through local capacity building and bi-directional collaboration to enhance sustainability.
She explained to the audience that it is crucial to recognize that genuine capacity building extends beyond the development of technology; it must also include the active involvement of local users and researchers. Only by integrating other perspectives can researchers genuinely develop technologies that will be adopted and embraced locally.
To aid in her efforts to translate technology and knowledge, she created a program called the University of Washington Thailand Diagnostic Circle, in which researchers at the University of Washington work directly with a council of the president of the University of Thailand. Having a bi-directional group, she said, amplifies the voices within that group. She remarked that it is so special because sometimes, in small, low- and middle-income countries, one university's president's voice can be quite small. Yet, through the power of people coming together to form a council of 36 universities, now you start talking, and people listen. She shared this to encourage other researchers to lean into the power of collaboration and exchange.
And, she added, it comes back to a question of who is paying. Combining forces amplifies voices but can also draw funding from different sources. She explained that the way the exchange works is that Thailand presented an area where they need to improve in global health or another area. They asked the University of Washington to identify the potential partnership within the network. Then, the partners develop grants together, and Thailand University helps identify a matching organization that can provide funding. The result is multiple streams of investment from the beginning of a project. This provides an opportunity for a global partner to be invested in terms of contribution to technology development. She noted that not all countries can contribute money. However, she encouraged bi-directional teams to still benefit the project through the dedication and willingness to change a system for the better that is found in partners throughout the world.
Panpradist closed her keynote with a quiz of thoughtful questions to the audience.
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Dr. Ning Li ’97 ‘99, 2024 Crystal Sea Award Presenter
The Crystal Sea Award each year honors the design team that best expanded innovation in either materials sciences or digital innovation category.
Dr. Li presented the 2024 Crystal Sea Award to Team Vector Vigilantes from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. Two team members, Tonmoy Saha and Mahian Joarder, had developed a deep learning model accurately detects species and location of mosquitoes to facilitate control and prevention of spread of Dengue fever.
Dr. Li shared the significance of the Crystal Sea Award with the audience. “We all cross different seas to get to our destination”, she showed pictures of the motel turned into Rice Graduate House as of 1994, the year she came to Rice for her graduate study from China. At the exact location is now the Rice BRC building where the Rice 360 competition is held.
The award also honors her grandfather, Haiqing Du, a distinguished Materials Science Professor at Hunan University. Crystal Sea invokes Hai Qing in Chinese. She spoke about the inspiration she finds in her grandfather’s work of furthering students' learning in materials science engineering citing his impactful sabbatical year in Algeria in 1979, where he contributed significantly to both academia and industry.
In her presentation, Dr. Li encouraged young engineers to innovate in meaningful ways. She provided insight from her career in technology and venture capital, including a historical look at the exponential growth and significant deflation power of Hard Disk Drive industry, which she dedicated for over 18 years. She calls on the young researchers to embrace latest technological breakthroughs, such as new materials and AI technology, to enable healthcare innovation in low resource settings.
